The production of animal litter from various mineral and biomass granular materials that are decorated with urine-activated clumping agents is well known to the art. Representative examples are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,458,091 and 6,053,125. While such animal litter products have generally been effective, the generally modest urine absorption by a base granule has meant that urine entrainment has had to occur through the wetting and activation of the surface decorating clumping agent. This mechanism results in a less efficient use of litter than would otherwise be obtainable provided the base granule was urine absorbent.
Since conventional animal litters are formed from a large granule decorated with clumping agent, granule irregularity in both shape and size tends to create tracking of the resulting litter by an animal after usage in addition to dust formation associated with granule bumping during transport. A still further limitation of conventional animal litter products is that the typical granule size decorated with clumping agent forms a mass that is unsuitable for disposal in most septic systems and therefore must be handled as solid waste. Thus, there exists a need for an animal litter product where the base granule is formed from agglomerated finer particulate in order to overcome the limitations of the prior art, such litter produced by commercially practical methodology.